Students displaced by water line break asked to stay home until Sunday (Updated 1:42 p.m.)

Water bubbles to the street (foreground) from a leaking valve as Erie Water Works workers (background) search for a water main break at the intersection of Essex and Pine Avenues in Erie on Jan. 25. The break, which workers have not been able to locate, has caused water pressure problems for thousands of east Erie residents and businesses since Jan. 23. CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS

An Erie Water Works employee didn't need a special listening device to hear water rushing into a storm drain along Pine Avenue Thursday night.

The water had been released by a break in a nearby water main and was pouring into the drain instead of into the lines and tanks that supply water to homes, businesses and schools in southeast Erie and Belle Valley.

A few thousand customers had been without water or experienced lower-than-normal water pressure since the main broke Wednesday morning. Utility workers had trouble finding the break because the leak wasn't readily visible, Erie Water Works Executive Director Paul Vojtek said.

"It's our worst nightmare. Water goes into a stream or into a drain instead of coming up where we can see it," he said.

Utility crews stopped the leak after it was found late Thursday. Water service and pressure had been restored to most areas by the time crews began excavating and repairing the line Friday morning.

The leak had begun to drain the public water system.

Mercyhurst University closed its Erie campus Thursday because part of the campus had no water. Water issues also closed JoAnna Connell School, on East 38th Street, and Mercyhurst Preparatory School and St. Mark Catholic Center, both on East Grandview Boulevard.

Mercyhurst University junior Tracey Howland was philosophical about the closing. She drove home to Springfield Township Thursday night and planned to take advantage of the long weekend to catch up with course work.

"Stuff just happens," she said. "I'll use the time to catch up on some papers."

Some faculty and staff are housing students who are farther from home, university spokeswoman Deborah Morton said.

"Neighbors called up and offered to take students in. Gannon University also offered. There's been a generous outpouring of help, and we're grateful for and heartened by that generosity," Morton said.

Several hundred other students chose to remain on campus, most of them in university-owned apartments that still had water.

Students have been asked not to return to campus before Sunday afternoon so that maintenance crews have time to clean facilities and repair any damage, university Vice President Gerry Tobin said in a prepared statement Friday. A number of university restrooms are temporarily closed. University buildings heated by boilers did not have to be closed since water service was restored to the campus Friday.

Classes are scheduled to resume Monday.

The search for the broken water main that caused the closings was the most intense since 2005, when a number of customers went without water while crews looked for a broken line. The line had been enveloped by a rain-swollen creek near the Erie Zoo, Vojtek said.

"The only difference between these breaks and the other 250 breaks that we have in a year is that the water from these doesn't come up out of the ground," Vojtek said.

An Erie Water Works employee found the latest elusive break while checking hydrants on Pine Avenue. He had been attaching a device to the hydrants that allowed him to listen for the sound of water rushing past, but heard the water while walking between hydrants.

"He looked down into this storm drain and saw a tremendous amount of water going in," Vojtek said.

The water system had been pumping water at the rate of 3.1 million gallons per day before the leak was clamped. The rate dropped to 1.8 million gallons per day afterward, Vojtek said.

By comparison, the average family of four uses 400 gallons of water each day, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

VALERIE MYERS can be reached at 878-1913 or by e-mail. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNmyers.